莱赫·莱查·佐哈尔 4

1AND THE LORD SAID TO ABRAM. Just before this it is written, “And Haran died in the presence of Terah his father” (Gen. 11, 28). The connection is as follows. Up to that time no one had ever died in the lifetime of his father. Haran, however, was killed at the time when Abram was cast into the furnace. Then it says, “And Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, etc…. and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees.”

2We should expect “and they went forth with him״, referring to Terah; why, then, does it say “with them”? The reason is that Terah and Lot went forth with Abram and Sara, who led the way in departing from that sinful district; for when Terah saw that Abram was rescued from the fire, he began to be guided by Abram, and therefore we read, “and they went forth with them”, i.e. Terah and Lot with Abram and Sara.

3Also it was “to go into the land of Canaan”, where they wanted to go. We learn further from this text that whoever makes an effort to purify himself receives assistance from above. For no sooner is it written, “to go to the land of Canaan” than we read “and God said to Abram, Get thee forth”; this message was not given to him until he made the first move himself.

4For the upper world is not stirred to act until an impulse is given from the lower world. The prototype of this process is that the blackish light is not caught up by the white light until it has first itself begun to mount; but when it does so, forthwith the white light rests upon it,

5and therefore it is written, “O Lord, keep not thou silence, hold not thy peace and be not still, O God” (Ps. 83, 2), in order that the white light may never be withheld from the world. So, too, it says, “Ye that are the Lord’s remembrancers, keep not silence” (Is. 62, 6), in order to give the impulse from below for the influence to descend from the upper world. Similarly the prophetic spirit rests upon man only when he has first bestirred himself to receive it. So here, too, when once Abram and his family had left Ur of the Chaldees, then God said to him, “Get thee forth”;